Storm moves out to sea after slamming NewfoundlandFORTUNE, Newfoundland (AP) — Post-tropical storm Leslie moved out to sea Tuesday afternoon, hours after its stiff winds and heavy rains pummeled Newfoundland, knocking out power to thousands and forcing the cancellation of all flights at the island’s main airport. Jean-Marc Couturier, a forecaster with the Canadian Hurricane Centre, said Leslie passed through Cape Bonavista in northeastern Newfoundland early Tuesday afternoon, and headed out t...

US-Israel divisions over Iran boil overJERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is sounding increasingly agitated over what it views as American dithering with economic sanctions too weak to force Iran to end its suspected drive toward nuclear weapons. In a clear message aimed at the White House, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday criticized what he said was the world’s failure to spell out what would provoke a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The comments came...

China sends patrol ships to islands held by JapanBEIJING (AP) — A territorial flare-up between China and Japan intensified as two Beijing-sent patrol ships arrived near disputed East China Sea islands in a show of anger over Tokyo’s purchase of the largely barren outcroppings from their private owners. The China Marine Surveillance has drawn up a plan to safeguard China’s sovereignty of the islands and the ships were sent to assert those claims, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesd...

British schools put cameras in bathrooms, lockersLONDON (AP) — At the King Ecgbert School in Sheffield, teens who go to the bathroom are never really alone — video cameras are inside all 12 loos. Citing findings gathered via freedom-of-information requests, privacy activists Wednesday identified King Ecgbert as one of more than 200 high schools across Britain that have installed surveillance cameras in bathrooms or locker rooms. The group behind the report, Big Brother Watch, said a powerful...

Dead prisoner had troubled history at GuantanamoSAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The latest prisoner to die at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, was identified Tuesday as a Yemeni man with a history of mental illness who battled guards inside the prison and challenged his confinement all the way to the Supreme Court. Adnan Latif spent more than a decade at Guantanamo, where he repeatedly went on hunger strike and once slashed his wrist and hurled the blood at his visiting lawyer. He also recei...

Wounded flood hospitals in Syria’s largest cityALEPPO, Syria (AP) — It had been a calm day in Aleppo’s Shifa Hospital, said Dr. Osman al-Haj Osman, his face etched with exhaustion from just three hours of sleep. Then, a man burst in bearing the shrieking bundle of a 6-year-old girl who’d had a machine-gun bullet rip through both her knees. Two months into the battle for Syria’s largest city, civilians are still bearing the brunt of the daily assaults of helicopter gunships, roaring jets an...

Police search UK home of couple slain in FranceLONDON (AP) — French and British police searched the U.K. home of a British-Iraqi couple slain while vacationing in the French Alps, as it emerged Saturday that all four people killed in the attack took two gunshots to the head. Meanwhile, relatives arrived in France to help care for the couple’s two surviving daughters, one of whom was badly wounded. Questions remained about a potential motive for the killings as well as the identity of one v...

Nicaragua evacuates 3,000 as volcano spews ashMANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — The San Cristobal volcano spewed out a column of ash and gas 2 1/2 miles high Saturday, leading Nicaraguan authorities to evacuate about 3,000 people from nine communities around the country’s tallest mountain. Residents reported hearing three powerful explosions in the volcano as the cloud began billowing skyward and ash drifted over nearby villages. “This activity could affect some 500 families totaling 3,000 people...

Bermuda wary, but calm as storm likely to pass byHAMILTON, Bermuda (AP) — Tropical Storm Leslie swirled northward in the Atlantic late Saturday toward Bermuda, and forecasters said it might strengthen into a hurricane again while passing to the east of this wealthy British territory. Forecasts pointed to the storm following a track about 200 miles (320 kilometers) east-southeast of the British territory Sunday afternoon or evening, the Bermuda Weather Service said. “Bermuda seems to have esc...

Strong Costa Rica quake causes panic, minor damageCANGREJAL, Costa Rica (AP) — A powerful magnitude-7.6 earthquake shook Costa Rica and neighboring countries Wednesday, sending panicked people into the streets and briefly triggering a tsunami alert, but causing little damage. Authorities reported one confirmed death. “When we felt the earthquake, we held onto each other because we kept falling,” said Rosa Pichardo, 45, who was walking on the beach in the town of Samara with her family when th...

Mexico: Attack on US embassy car was an accidentMEXICO CITY (AP) — High-ranking Mexican security officials are portraying the shooting of two CIA agents by Mexican federal police as a well-intentioned mishap rather than a deliberate attack. A series of military and law-enforcement officials have emphasized in public statements over the last three days that the group of 12 federal police was investigating a kidnapping when they encountered the two U.S. agents and a Mexican marine captain and...

US drone strike kills 5 militants in PakistanISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani intelligence officials say a U.S. drone strike has killed five militants in northwest Pakistan. Two intelligence officials said at least seven missiles were fired from U.S. drones Saturday at a vehicle and a house in the village of Degan in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan near the Afghan border. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media. They sa...

Clinton pledges security in South Pacific visitRAROTONGA, Cook Islands (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday pledged renewed American commitment to security in the Asia-Pacific, where tensions are rising between China and its smaller neighbors over territorial disputes and many nations face threats from climate change. Speaking at a meeting of leaders of South Pacific island nations, Clinton said the United States would not abandon its long history of protecting m...

Quake off Philippines spurs small tsunami; 1 dead MANILA, Philippines (AP) — MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Thousands of villagers who fled their coastal homes during a powerful earthquake in the central Philippines have returned home, but hundreds more still jittery from the temblor remained in evacuation centers Saturday, officials said. The magnitude-7.6 quake struck off the Philippines’ east coast late Friday, killing one person in a house collapse, knocking out power in several towns and spu...

Turkey appeals to UN council for Syria safe zoneUNITED NATIONS (AP) — Turkey appealed to a reluctant UN Security Council Thursday for a safe haven for thousands of Syrians facing a “humanitarian disaster” as Britain and France said they would rule out no options — including a no-fly zone — to aid residents fleeing an escalating civil war. But Turkish leaders held out little hope for the endorsement of a deeply divided council that has been paralyzed on taking action to stop the 18-month upr...

Afghanistan helicopter crash kills 2 NATO troopsKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The international military coalition in Afghanistan says two international service members have been killed in a helicopter crash in the country's south. NATO forces said in a statement that they had no reports of enemy activity in the area where the helicopter crashed Thursday. The statement does not provide further details on the incident nor the nationality of the dead. At least 54 international service members hav...

2 Chinese ships hit by typhoon; 4 dead, 11 missingSEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A powerful typhoon pounded South Korea with strong winds and heavy rain Tuesday, while the nation's coast guard battled rough seas in a race to rescue fishermen on two Chinese ships that slammed into rocks off the southern coast. At least four fishermen died and 11 were missing. Dangerous waves kept rescue boats from approaching the ships, so the coast guard used a special gun to shoot rope to one ship so that officer...

Refinery blast kills 39 in Venezuela, dozens hurtPUNTO FIJO, Venezuela (AP) — A huge explosion rocked Venezuela's biggest oil refinery and unleashed a ferocious fire on Saturday, killing at least 39 people and injuring more than 80 others in one of the deadliest disasters ever to hit the country's key oil industry. Balls of fire rose over the Amuay refinery, among the largest in the world, in video posted on the Internet by people who were nearby at the time. Government officials pledged to ...

Isaac drenches Haiti, Cuba, heads toward FloridaHAVANA (AP) — Tropical Storm Isaac pushed over Cuba on Saturday after sweeping across Haiti's southern peninsula, where it caused flooding and at least four deaths, adding to the misery of a poor nation still trying to recover from the terrible 2010 earthquake. Isaac's center made landfall just before midday near the far-eastern tip of Cuba, downing trees and power lines. In the picturesque city of Baracoa, the storm surge flooded the seaside ...

Mexico probes why federal cops fired at US gov carMEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities are trying to sort out why a U.S. Embassy vehicle was ambushed by federal police on a rural back road in mountains south of the capital, leaving two U.S. government workers wounded. Officials from both nations said federal officers were chasing criminals Friday morning when a hail of bullets was fired at the embassy sport utility vehicle carrying the two employees and a Mexican Navy captain. Federal polic...